HANOI, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Seven people from Vietnam's southern Binh Phuoc province have been killed after an artillery shell exploded, local newspaper Youth reported on Friday.

    The explosion occurred Thursday in Binh Long district when a 42-year-old scrap collector named Pham Anh Tuan was sawing the shell for explosive. Three people died instantly, and four others on the way to hospital.

    Besides the 42-year-old man, six other victims were young: in the age bracket of 5-18. All the seven were each other's relatives.

    According to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund of the United States, during the Vietnam War in 1965-1975, the U.S. Armed Forces deployed more than 15 million tons of bombs, mines, artillery shells and other ordnance in Vietnam, in which 10 percent did not detonate as designed.

    Local scrap collectors often saw unexploded ordnance (UXO) for metal and explosive, while small children play ammunitions by breaking them, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries annually.

    There are still over 300,000 tons of UXO in Vietnam, according to estimates.